Discovery and development of new substances and materials represent paramount goals in materials science, chemistry, and pharmaceutics. However, the search for suitable compounds frequently involves great expenses in terms of both financial means and time. In order to carry out this search in a more efficient and more cost-effective way, a systematic methodology, which became known as “Combinatorial Chemistry,” had been introduced years ago in pharmaceutics and subsequently also in other areas of application. Multiple potentially interesting compounds are produced and analyzed in this method. The possibility of automation, which allows for great throughput capacities in the shortest time, is to be considered the advantage of this method.
For generating the necessary materials libraries, a great number of potentially interesting substances or their precursor compounds must be positioned or metered at defined points of appropriate substrates. Due to the typically great number of substances to be metered, this is carried out fully automatically.
In particular in manufacturing of formulations such as paints, adhesives, pesticides, screen-printing pastes, etc., grinding balls or glass beads are added to the formulation and agitated via rapid and vigorous shaking and turning for better mixing results and for disintegrating particles. Due to the rapid acceleration of the balls, the particles are disintegrated at the impact of the balls. This process is referred to as dispersion.
After dispersing or mixing, the dispersion (formulation), containing the grinding balls or glass beads, is mostly fed to a screen for separating the balls. The remaining formulation is rinsed from between the grinding balls or glass beads by using an additional solvent. Appropriate grinding balls are typically made of glass, ceramic, or metal.
For use in combinatorial chemistry, this method is very difficult to automate, since a new or cleaned screen must be installed for each formulation, for example. Furthermore, a final rinsing process requires an additional metering unit. Moreover, handling a formulation containing heavy balls for feeding it to a screen is not easy to implement.
An object of the present invention is to provide a metering element, a metering device, and a method for operating same which allow an automated dispersing, mixing, or grinding procedure which is suitable for use in combinatorial chemistry.